


some vascular great thing

by mythras_fire



Series: Like Something Cosmic [7]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Friendships, Gen, Inspired by Music, Michael Guerin & Alex Manes Use Their Words, Michael Guerin Deserves Nice Things, New Year's Eve, POV Michael Guerin, Post-Canon, feelings are hard, fireside chat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28471944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythras_fire/pseuds/mythras_fire
Summary: Michael and Alex share a quiet New Year's Eve camped out in front of the Airstream, talking through the fire burning between them.
Relationships: Michael Guerin & Alex Manes
Series: Like Something Cosmic [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675075
Comments: 23
Kudos: 24





	some vascular great thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [haloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/gifts).



> For haloud 🥰 who deserves all the Malex friendship goodness. Happy New Year! 🎇

“What’s your favorite color?”

Michael makes a surprised chortling sound that gets stuck in his throat, what with the way his neck is craned backward as he stares into the great beyond over his head. He has to lean forward to cough before he can look up to regard Alex with a raised eyebrow. He’s been learning from the best, you know. 

“What’s my what?”

Alex holds up a weather-beaten copy of Cosmo that Michael most certainly hasn’t left lying around the firepit (he’s more of a _Magnolia Journal_ kind of guy but also because Chip Gaines is his hero), expressive brown eyes peering over the top edge, the rest of his face hidden. Must’ve found one of those ridiculous quizzes. The firelight dances across the pages and leaps into the shadows of his hair, peeking out as his eyebrows parry Michael’s question.

Michael can win a staring contest with anyone, as long as that someone isn’t Alex Manes. He folds like a cheap suit (which is kind of a misnomer, isn’t it? Suits don’t fold if they’re cheaply made, they wrinkle, not that Michael would know, he’s allergic to suits) and returns his gaze to the night sky. What is the color of infinity? The entropy swirling around inside his head? Chaos?

“Clear.”

The muffled sound of chuckling sneaks around the firepit, keeping low to the ground like it senses mischief is afoot. “Clear isn’t a color.”

“Sure it is.”

“Is not.”

“Is, too.”

“Is n— fine, give me an example, then.”

Michael almost wants to continue needling him just to see how long they’ll argue over semantics. That has become a favorite pastime of theirs over the past six months of being friends. Talking about all and sundry, sometimes not talking at all. They’ve always been comfortable around each other, they’ve just added a new level with clothes and separate chairs. He smiles up at the stars and hey…

“The stars are clear.”

“No they’re not; if they were, we wouldn’t be able to see them.”

“Actually, they’re beige.”

“Beige?”

“Yeah, the astronomical society got together to find the average color of the universe, and, 2dF survey says, beige. But the entry that won the contest for naming this conditionally perceived shade of beige is— wait for it...” Michael dramatically holds up an index finger to forestall any more of Alex’s objections. He knows he has his perplexed face on, head tilted to one side like an inquisitive puppy, which is why Michael’s keeping his eyes focused on following the trajectory of Mars across the night sky. It’s too adorable. He waits another second or two before returning his hand to the warm confines of his best winter jacket, the one with the Southwestern patterns over the breast pockets. “Cosmic latte.”

Alex barks out a laugh. “No it isn’t! You’re fucking with me.”

Michael shrugs, master of nonchalance when it comes to people not believing him whether he’s telling the truth or spinning shit. The devious quirk of his mouth isn’t giving anything away either.

“What were the other entries?”

Michael has to pull his head back onto his shoulders so he can look down and to the right, because that’s where pieces of trivia live in his head apparently. “Um, skyvory and univeige were the only other ones I saw listed. I kinda like skyvory as a runner-up myself.”

Unfortunately, down and to the right puts his line of sight directly underneath the chair next to where Alex has been lounging in his usual spot while they hide out in the junkyard away from the revelers counting down the new year back in town. His brows furrow and he doesn’t hear whatever Alex says next.

“Sorry, what’d you say?” He asks, lips struggling to form the necessary words where they’re being weighed down frowning at the small patch of recently-disturbed earth under the rusty metal chair, and nearly misses what Alex says a second time.

“—re you glowering at?”

Maybe he should’ve picked somewhere else to bury it. Maybe he shouldn’t have had it in the first place and then he wouldn’t have had to bury it in a fit of pique. Maybe he should know better by now. Mayb—

“Michael!”

His first name on Alex’s lips may as well be a foghorn alerting ships pulling into port on a moonless night where to find safe passage. He lifts his head out of the fog rolling over his mind to see a concerned look on his best friend’s face as he leans over to look where Michael’s focus has been, one hand braced on the arm of the lawn chair, one on his crutch, preparing to rise.

“Sorry, Alex. I’m fine.” He pulls a warm hand out of his pocket and rubs it over his features, trying to wipe the frown off his face but it gets stuck in the whiskers he hasn’t felt like shaving the last few days. “Sorry.”

Alex settles back into his seat, tucking the blanket that has half-fallen off his lap back around his stump to keep it warm. His gaze and hands are pulled towards the warmth of the fire flickering between them. “Wanna talk about it?” he asks quietly.

“It’s stup—” he cuts himself off, sighs roughly; mad at himself because he’s been _trying_ , okay? He’s just minding his own business and then some random (okay fine, maybe not so random, but still) song’ll come along and it’ll get under his skin and then he just…

“Have,” he clears his throat, eyes focusing on the ephemeral tips of the flames, never in the same place twice but always everywhere at once, “have you ever heard of a song called ‘Do Not Let Your Spirit Wane’ by Gang of Youths?”

In his peripheral vision, he can see Alex shake his head, the full intensity of his undivided attention making him feel warm where the fire can’t reach him.

“Well, it’s about a dream-life that this guy has, like, in an actual dream, not cuz he won the lottery or whatever. Not, not that kind. It’s a dream he keeps having and in it he has a wife and a kid, I mean, I guess it’s his wife, an-y-way,” Michael pauses to take a deep breath. Ugh. Why are feelings so hard? “So um, in this song he’s really happy in the dream and he’s got everything he ever wanted, a house, a wife, a kid, probably a career, but he doesn’t feel like he deserves it, all these good things, and every time his wife and kid go out to run an errand, he sits in his basement drinking figuring that this can’t be real, he must actually be alone.”

He chances a proper look up at Alex and his eyes have taken on a familiar, impossibly soft countenance. Michael has seen that look many times and it means something a little different for each individual occasion. Tonight, as midnight nears and the sounds of revelry grow louder and the flash of random low-flying fireworks sparkle out over the star-studded desert, Alex’s eyes are like a big non-judgmental hug, encouraging him to go on.

“And then what happens?” Alex asks softly when Michael’s voice stalls.

“He loses them. Car accident. Or crash or-or whatever it’s called when you’re not a passenger inside the car,” Michael replies, feeling more and more morose, which is not good seeing as how it’s not real. But he can’t help drawing parallels…

“Oh.”

How could one sound hold so much understanding?

“Yeah.”

“But, wait, that’s in the dream, right?”

Michael blinks. “Uh, yeah.”

“And he wakes up afterward?”

“Uh-huh.”

They’re quiet for a minute or two, both gazing at the undulating, untouchable but oh so enticing columns of light and heat.

“ _Do not let your spirit wane_ ,” Alex smiles softly. “That’s the silver lining.”

“It is?” Michael’s voice wobbles just a little bit. He feels winded from talking about something heavy like this with Alex and not having it blow up in their faces. Because for once it’s not about them, or anyone they know. It’s not real.

“The guy in the song. He’s just worried he’s going to take the good things in his life for granted. Worried he somehow doesn’t deserve them in the first place. Like, maybe he finally stopped running from whatever he thought he shouldn’t want and found out that those things are what make him happy.” 

Alex’s eyes gain a mischievous twinkle that Michael knows isn’t coming from the fire. “Not that we’d know anything about running from our problems or anything like that.”

And oh, what a welcome bit of levity that wry comment is. They’ve worked hard to get to this moment. To be able to poke fun at themselves. To share.

Michael’s relieved snort ends up a sniffle. “Nopes, not us.”

Alex’s perplexed look is back on his face but Michael’s too busy basking in the glow of his company to try looking elsewhere. “So what’s that song got to do with you giving a mound of dirt under a lawn chair the ol’ death glare?”

For as much as he feels like he just ran a marathon and would like to go crawl into bed now —by himself, mind you, because he’s _trying_ — he also feels a little chagrined to reveal the reason to Alex after all this.

“Uhhh,” Michael begins eloquently, a regular modern-day Shakespeare he is, but before he can continue, Alex is poking at the pile of dirt with the end of his crutch and the grating sound of plastic rubbing against rocks escapes out into the night, ping-ponging off surrounding surfaces.

“A little help here, Michael, I don’t wanna get up,” Alex says without looking up, waving his free hand in the universal sign for ‘c’mon, use your powers, we haven’t got all day’ that the pod squad has had to get used to when hanging out with their favorite humans.

Resigned to his fate, Michael sighs and focuses on picking up the dirt-encrusted case with his brain and depositing it in Alex’s lap.

Alex sets his crutch back against another chair, looks down at his lap, and promptly clamps a hand over his mouth to contain his giggling. Michael can’t help but be swept up in Alex’s mirth and he starts giggling, too, although his hand is covering his temple instead.

“You… buried… the CD…” Alex says conversationally in between giggles.

“Yes,” Michael says with as much conviction as one can muster while giggling.

“Good for you,” Alex smiles at him across the firelight as the giggling subsides.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, because this isn’t going to happen to you, Michael.”

“It’s not?” His voice sounds small and insecure, which annoys him to no end, in the wake of the sudden shift in mood.

“No.”

“How—”

“Because you have me.”

Michael blinks.

“You’ll always have me,” Alex quietly confirms with a confidence Michael has started to feel a little more each time they hang out together.

“This,” Alex points a finger back and forth between them, “this is real.”

A sudden burst of sparkling color appears in the sky behind Alex’s head and they both look up as the countdown appears to have ended.

A melodious voice starts singing a song that Michael has never really paid much attention to before, but you can be assured he does tonight.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?” Alex sings softly, his rich voice floating into the midnight air. “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne? For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne. We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.”

Michael settles a little more comfortably into himself and smiles at his best friend. Alex smiles back.

“Happy New Year, Alex.”

“Happy New Year, Michael.”

**Author's Note:**

> Story title comes from the song ["Do Not Let Your Spirit Wane"](https://genius.com/Gang-of-youths-do-not-let-your-spirit-wane-lyrics) by Gang of Youths.
> 
> You can view the color of the "cosmic latte" Michael mentions [here](https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201227.html), courtesy of the awesome Astronomy Photo of the Day website.
> 
> I just found out that _Auld Lang Syne_ is a Robert Burns poem set to music in the manner of a pentatonic Scots folk melody, and it has several more verses than are commonly sung today. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne) has all of the verses listed plus Burn's original verses which are slightly different, a Scots pronunciation, and an IPA pronunciation, which is really cool.
> 
> From the same page: "The song begins by posing a rhetorical question: Is it right that old times be forgotten? The answer is generally interpreted as a call to remember long-standing friendships." 😊


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